Puritan Quotes

• A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Righteous, Persons, Wrong Things

  The New York Times, November 21, 1930.

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• The puritan through life's sweet garden goes to pluck the thorn and cast away the rose.

  Kenneth Hare

  Sweet, Garden, Rose

  Kenneth Hare (1957). “Nymphs and Rivers: (a Selection from Poems Composed Between 1910 and 1957)”

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• The Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.

  Wendell Phillips

  Ideas, Gossip, Mind

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• Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset; eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise.

  Thomas Watson

  Sunset, Godly, Night

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• Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

  H. L. Mencken

  God, Being Happy, Cynical

  A Mencken Chrestomathy ch. 30 (1949)

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• No doctrine is more excellent, or necessary to be preached and studied, than Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

  John Flavel

  Religious, Jesus, Christian Inspirational

  John Flavel (2014). “Fountain of Life: 1671”

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• Did Christ finish His work for us? Then there can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us.

  John Flavel

  Christian, Religious, Jesus

  John Flavel (1836). “The Fountain of Life Opened; Or, A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory. 1671”, p.351

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• The Puritans' sense of priorities in life was one of their greatest strengths. Putting God first and valuing everything else in relation to God was a recurrent Puritan theme.

  Leland Ryken

  Priorities In Life, Firsts, Theme

  Leland Ryken (2010). “Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were”, p.299, Harper Collins

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• The world and you must part, or Christ and you will never meet.

  Thomas Brooks

  Jesus, Dying, World

  Thomas Brooks, Jay Patrick Green, Sr. (2000). “A Mute Christian Under the Rod & Apples of Gold”, p.189, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• When we believe that we should be satisfied rather than God glorified in our worship, then we put God below ourselves as though He had been made for us rather than that we had been made for Him.

  Stephen Charnock

  Faith, God, Christian

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• The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Pain, History, Religion

  "History of England". Volume I, Chapter II, 1849-1861.

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• What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.

  Wendell Phillips

  World, Action

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.229

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• The carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much, and God too little.

  John Flavel

  God, Christian, Strong

  John Flavel (1770). “The whole works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel ...”, p.4

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• As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low.

  John Flavel

  God, Religious, Firsts

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• Let us look upon a crucified Christ, the remedy of all our miseries. His cross hath procured a crown, his passion hath expiated our transgression. His death hath disarmed the law, his blood hath washed a believer's soul. This death is the destruction of our enemies, the spring of our happiness, and the eternal testimony of divine love.

  Stephen Charnock

  Happiness, Death, Christian

  "Christ Our Passover".

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• Suppose that by revenge you might destroy one enemy; yet, by exercising the Christian's temper you might conquer three‌–‌your own lust, Satan's temptation, and your enemy's heart.

  John Flavel

  Christian, Revenge, Heart

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• The knowledge of Christ is profound and large. All other sciences are but shadows; this is a boundless, bottomless ocean. Though something of Christ be unfolded in one age, and something in another, yet eternity itself cannot full unfold him.

  John Flavel

  God, Christian, Religious

  John Flavel (1671). “The Fountain of Life Opened, Or, A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory: Containing 42 Sermons on Various Texts ...”, p.13

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• A man's greatest care should be for that place where he lives longest; therefore eternity should be his scope.

  Thomas Watson

  Christian, Blessing, Men

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• Affliction may be lasting, but it is not everlasting.

  Thomas Watson

  Adversity, Affliction, May

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• Did you never run for shelter in a storm, and find fruit which you expected not? Did you never go to God for safeguard, driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected fruit?

  John Owen

  Christian, Running, Blessing

  John Owen (1904). “The Golden Book of John Owen: Passages from the Writings of the Rev. John Owen, M.A., D.D., Sometime Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Dean of Christ Church”

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• The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated.

  John Flavel

  Christian, Jesus, Law

  John Flavel (1996). “The Method of Grace: How the Holy Spirit Works”, p.264, Hartland Publications

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• In Puritan thinking, the Christian life was a heroic venture, requiring a full quota of energy.

  Leland Ryken

  Christian, Thinking, Energy

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• I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, 'Man, you were so honest - can't you have some fun? Can't you do some really down and dirty lying?' But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie, I'll be punished.

  Willem Dafoe

  Fun, Lying, Dirty

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• By all means read the Puritans, they are worth more than all the modern stuff put together.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Mean, Together, Stuff

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• A puritan is such a one as loves God with all his soul, but hates his neighbor with all his heart.

  Adam Nicolson

  Hate, Heart, Soul

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